Cllr Bev Craig OBE
Leader of Manchester City Council
Joe Manning
Managing Director, Invest Manchester
Mark Robinson
Director of Economy and Place, Rochdale Borough Council
Liz Bamber
Director of Place, Sister Manchester
Alice Webb
CEO, MediaCity and dock10
Learn how Manchester is achieving economic success, bringing high-value employment and improving liveability by investing in key industrial clusters.
Manchester’s transformation from post-industrial decline to sustained, above-average growth has been widely documented, but the real significance lies in how that growth has been delivered and what it enables.
Cllr Bev Craig OBE, Leader, Manchester City Council
Manchester’s approach has been grounded in long-term leadership, economic diversity and a clear focus. Rather than chasing short-term returns, it invested in the fundamentals that underpin investor confidence: skills, health, infrastructure and neighbourhoods that support everyday life.
That strategy has paid off. Life expectancy is rising, reflecting continued action on inequality and public health. The city has also undergone a major skills transformation, with the proportion of working-age residents without formal qualifications falling dramatically.
Improving Manchester’s liveability
A healthier, better-skilled population strengthens productivity, supports business growth and underpins long-term demand for housing, workspace and services.
Our population is rising rapidly, with over 100,000 living in the city centre. To support this, we’re deploying a detailed housing strategy, creating thousands of homes at all levels of affordability in neighbourhoods in the city centre and beyond.
Attracting major international events like the Brit Awards has cemented Manchester’s reputation as a cultural hive, improving global visibility and acting as a talent magnet, enticing companies of all sizes and industries. Manchester’s economy is deliberately broad, enabling it to remain resilient and create an attractive entrepreneurial ecosystem that encourages cross-sector collaboration and R&D.
Backed by our universities, established innovation clusters like The Oxford Road Corridor and new districts like Sister and MIX Manchester, the city is creating the conditions for business growth.
Having a resilient market for investment, with depth and momentum, the next phase of Manchester’s growth is about scale and impact. We need to translate investment into wider opportunity; creating jobs, homes and a vibrant economic core that benefits everyone.
Joe Manning, Managing Director, Invest Manchester
For the third consecutive year, Greater Manchester has attracted more foreign direct investment than any other city region outside of London. Over 2,000 foreign-owned companies are based here, from global names like Google, Amazon, IBM, Siemens, Puma and BNY Mellon to fast-growing businesses choosing Greater Manchester as the place to scale.
Sectors driving investment
The sectors driving that investment span advanced manufacturing, life sciences, creative digital and tech and financial and professional services. Developments like Atom Valley, spanning Bury, Rochdale and Oldham, cover over 2,500 acres and represent one of the most significant manufacturing and logistics development zones in Europe.
In life sciences, the Oxford Road Corridor brings together the University of Manchester, Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust and a growing cluster of biotech and medtech businesses. The proximity between academia, clinical expertise and industry creates advantages difficult to replicate elsewhere.
Greater Manchester’s digital and tech economy is the largest outside London. MIX Manchester, sitting adjacent to Manchester Airport, offers two million square feet of manufacturing, R&D, laboratory and office space, and is the only major science and manufacturing campus in the UK with direct access to an international airport.
Part of what makes this work is the talent pipeline, with five universities producing 120,000 graduates a year, and we retain over half of them, the strongest rate outside London. They stay because of career opportunities, but also because Greater Manchester is a place people actually want to live. That combination of talent supply and retention is something international businesses consistently tell us matters when they’re making location decisions.
With Greater Manchester competing with European cities such as Lyon, Munich and Barcelona, for businesses weighing up where to locate in the UK, the track record speaks for itself.
A healthier, better-skilled population strengthens productivity, supports business growth and underpins long-term demand for housing, workspace and services.
Mark Robinson, Director of Economy and Place, Rochdale Borough Council
Greater Manchester’s coordinated approach to development and its long‑term economic vision is creating the right conditions for advanced manufacturing, materials and machinery businesses to plan for growth from the outset.
Atom Valley, one of the UK’s most significant emerging innovation clusters, contains established employment locations: Kingsway Business Park and Stakehill. These sites already accommodate major manufacturers and supply‑chain activity, giving the wider programme both scale and a solid commercial foundation. Strong existing transport connections offer manufacturers reliable public transport access, proximity to major highways, and established commercial facilities.
Atom Valley’s unique growth opportunity
The Atom Valley Mayoral Development Corporation will build on what already exists by delivering further development‑ready employment land, supported by planned housing and transport improvements at Northern Gateway. This will make it easier for businesses to access the people, suppliers and services they need across Greater Manchester.
Designed to close the gap between research and production, Atom Valley will work with the region’s world‑class universities to speed up the route from innovation to commercial manufacturing.
Alice Webb, CEO MediaCity & dock10
Greater Manchester has always recognised the power of the creative industries to drive growth, jobs and sustainable businesses. Their newly launched £1bn Good Growth Fund focuses on five core growth sectors, of which Creative Industries and Media is one. Its ambition is to double the size of Greater Manchester’s MediaCity over the next decade.
Long-term, stable support for creative businesses attracts investment, but also fuels a real sense of identity and pride, which itself attracts the best creative talent. It’s a virtuous circle Greater Manchester has been committed to, and the results speak for themselves: the region has the highest percentage of creative businesses outside London and the South-East.
How creative clusters play in Greater Manchester’s creative industry growth
Creative clusters like MediaCity turbocharge growth, not just locally, but internationally. Scale matters — to enable meaningful careers for a largely freelance workforce and attract investment from foreign partners; to unlock skills pathways, which only become viable through partnership and scale, not to mention bringing creative talent that thrives on connection and networks.
Businesses in MediaCity benefit from Greater Manchester’s long-term strategic vision for creative industries, but can also tap into all it can offer as a leader for innovation, immersive technology and content and media production. Through long-term investment, new global connections, contracts, products and more talent, we’re accelerating its evolution, which will unlock more opportunities for businesses to thrive here.
Liz Bamber, Director of Place, Sister Manchester
Manchester has always been a city of firsts — from splitting the atom to the birth of the first programmable computer. Our culture of innovation — especially in science and technology — is nurtured by collaboration between world-class academic institutions, industry and entrepreneurs.
Greater Manchester’s role in driving the life sciences sector
This ‘Triple Helix’ provides life science businesses with a faster route to market, giving leaders the guidance and support they need to grow an idea into a successful venture. Crucially, Manchester provides this ecosystem with a competitive cost of living, helping businesses’ capital go a bit further.
Growing a life science business requires a 360-wrap-around ecosystem. From navigating the regulatory landscape to accessing the latest research, it takes a community to raise an idea. Sister’s role is to connect the drivers of innovation, bridging entrepreneurs, academics, investors and industry experts to propel growth-ready businesses forward.
With growth at twice the UK average and a population boom that will see 250,000 residents in the city centre by 2035, the scale of opportunity in Manchester is undeniable. We offer the affordability and space the capital lacks, but with the culture, connectivity and talent of a global city. Manchester isn’t just growing; it’s leading.
